HDDs finally representing true size?

Smellyirishman

Recieved an e-mail today from Western Digital, they are apperantly in a court case because of how they represent the size of thier drives (Just like any other storage device, 1GB = 1000mb). They offered me ; Some free backup & recovery software or the ability to bring them to court or nothing and I waver my right to bring them to court :rolleyes:.

Anyway, good to see something is finally being done about it.

(Hope this ain't old news, did a bit of a browse >.<)

In the e-mail wrote:

A class action lawsuit entitled Safier v. Western Digital Corporation is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit claims that in the sale and marketing of its hard disk drives, Western Digital overstates the useable storage capacity. According to the lawsuit, when attached to most personal computers, a hard disk drive advertised as having "80GB" will only show an available capacity of "74.4GB." The lawsuit alleges that one reason for this disparity is the existence of two different measurements of a "GB," one of which is used by computer operating systems and another of which is used by hard disk drive manufacturers. The lawsuit seeks restitution, damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief.

WD has denied any wrongdoing or liability. WD believes that its marketing and advertising complied and continues to comply in all respects with the law. WD further believes that no Class Member, including the Plaintiff, has sustained any damages or injuries. Nonetheless, WD has concluded that further conduct of the Litigation would be protracted and expensive, and that it is desirable that the Litigation be fully and finally settled in the manner and upon the terms and conditions of the proposed settlement.

If the Court approves the settlement, WD will change how it markets and advertises the available storage capacity of its hard disk drives.

oisin

You are receiving this notice because our records indicate that you purchased an aftermarket Western Digital Corporation ("WD") hard disk drive between March 22, 2001 and February 15, 2006. "Aftermarket" purchasers are those who purchased their hard disk drives separately rather than pre-installed by an original equipment manufacturer into a computer.
A proposed class action settlement may affect your legal rights. If the settlement is approved, you may be eligible to receive free hard disk drive backup and recovery software from WD. Read below for a summary of the proposed settlement. For a detailed legal notice and complete terms, please visit www.wdc.com/settlement.
A class action lawsuit entitled Safier v. Western Digital Corporation is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit claims that in the sale and marketing of its hard disk drives, Western Digital overstates the useable storage capacity. According to the lawsuit, when attached to most personal computers, a hard disk drive advertised as having "80GB" will only show an available capacity of "74.4GB." The lawsuit alleges that one reason for this disparity is the existence of two different measurements of a "GB," one of which is used by computer operating systems and another of which is used by hard disk drive manufacturers. The lawsuit seeks restitution, damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief. The lawsuit is case number 05-03353 BZ.
WD has denied any wrongdoing or liability. WD believes that its marketing and advertising complied and continues to comply in all respects with the law. WD further believes that no Class Member, including the Plaintiff, has sustained any damages or injuries. Nonetheless, WD has concluded that further conduct of the Litigation would be protracted and expensive, and that it is desirable that the Litigation be fully and finally settled in the manner and upon the terms and conditions of the proposed settlement.
If the Court approves the settlement, WD will change how it markets and advertises the available storage capacity of its hard disk drives. WD also will provide eligible Class Members with free backup and recovery software to use with their hard disk drives. WD will be released from any further related claims by Class Members. Plaintiff's Counsel will ask the Court to award, and WD agrees to pay, an award of attorneys' fees of up to $485,000 and expenses of up to $15,000. Class Members will not be required to pay these attorneys' fees or costs.
You have four options about how to respond to the proposed settlement. Before making a decision, you should read the full explanation of the proposed settlement and release of claims at www.wdc.com/settlement. You have only a limited time to make your decision:
Option 1. Sign Up To Receive Free Software As Part Of The Settlement.
To get the software, you must fill out the Claim Form available at http://www.wdc.com/settlement no later than thirty days after Final Approval of the settlement. If you sign up for the free software, you give up your right to bring a separate lawsuit against Western Digital.
Option 2. Exclude Yourself From the Class
To preserve your right to bring a separate lawsuit, you must exclude yourself from the class. To do so, you must mail a letter by May 19, 2006, according to the instructions available at www.wdc.com/settlement. By excluding yourself, you won't get the free software.

Option 3. Make An Objection To The Settlement
To object to the settlement, you must serve legal papers on counsel for the parties by May 24, 2006, according to the instructions available at www.wdc.com/settlement.
Option 4. Do Nothing
If you do nothing, you won't get the free software. You also give up your right to bring a separate lawsuit against Western Digital.
To get more information about the settlement or about options 1-3, please visit http://www.wdc.com/settlement

Letter received from WD.

If you bought a WD drive between March 2001 and Feb 2006 you may be entitled to free software - see Option 1

JDxtra

Anybody know what the software is they are offering?

Alkers

What do I have to do to get software? I haven't received anything from WD?

Gurgle

Smellyirishman wrote:

Anyway, good to see something is finally being done about it.

Oh

Good

Grief!

So now we can expect HDDs to be branded as their binary size instead of their decimal size.

Whoopee-fcuking-doo!

Actual difference to the consumer - more expensive hard disks because they have to a) cover the cost of the lawsuit and b) pay for marketing consultants to audit their practices.

SouperComputer

next we'll have people suing because their 1.4L car is 1397CC :rolleyes:

Or maybe because their 800Mhz CPU only runs at 798Mhz

Smellyirishman

As HDDs get bigger, this disparity will only get worse. Got a terrabyte of info to back up? Well buy a TB HDD of course.... what happens when you get home? Your down over 20GB of space.

A car having slightly less space in it's tank or a CPU running slightly slower is not the same. 20GB is not a small figure. Claiming that you will be paying more is ridiculous. If I cut a piece of wood for you that you needed and said it was 20' you would expect 20', nothing less. The size claim is misleading and I think it is a good thing it's being stubbed....... so sue me .

Gurgle

Smellyirishman wrote:

As HDDs get bigger, this disparity will only get worse.

Oh for God's sake - Its not a disparity.
Its a different way of measuring it. Its like suing Tilebusters because the tiles are sold in square yards but your floor is in square metres.

If you buy a car for 10k, do you write a cheque for €10,240 ?

aphex™

Well why the feck would you (and possibly deliberatly) measure it in a different way to windows. Thats just stupid and really makes it look as you're out to mislead people.

And tilebusters probably would get done for selling in yards. Things are supposed to be metric now. Everybody uses metric now.

Smellyirishman

Gurgle wrote:

If you buy a car for 10k, do you write a cheque for €10,240 ?

That is a horrible analogy, if I buy a car for 10k, I expect to pay 10k why on earth would I pay more? Just like when I buy a 30GB HDD I should expect a 30GB HDD.

If you were selling your car and you agreed on 10k, then the person responded "OK, but by the way, I represent 1k as €950" would you accept that? (A similarly horrible analogy.

A k, and a GB are different units. One is the equivilant of 1000units, the other of 1024units.

SouperComputer

Well why the feck would you (and possibly deliberatly) measure it in a different way to windows. Thats just stupid and really makes it look as you're out to mislead people.

Storage technology has been around long since William Gates and Paul Allen were messing about with their "traffic counter" computer back in the 70's. Its measurement is based the correct measurement of capacity from how bits and bytes etc work. DOS doesnt even get a lookin, never mind Windows.

Gurgle

Smellyirishman wrote:

when I buy a 30GB HDD I should expect a 30GB HDD.

And thats what you get - a hard drive with storage space for 30 billion bytes.

The commonly accepted method of counting on this planet is in decimal. Under windows they use binary rounding. They call 1024 bytes a kilobyte because thats the nearest multiple of 2 to 1k.

Smellyirishman

I know how bytes are represented, I could argue the point more with numbers but it's not worth it. If you think that what they are doing atm is fine then OK, I however think there is a legitimate reason for it being brought to courts.

Sam Vimes

aphex&#8482 wrote:

Well why the feck would you (and possibly deliberatly) measure it in a different way to windows. Thats just stupid and really makes it look as you're out to mislead people.

And tilebusters probably would get done for selling in yards. Things are supposed to be metric now. Everybody uses metric now.

yeah apparently they can be fined for using emperical measurements. in theory i think its a good idea to have them use the same standard and not say the drive is bigger than it actually. they really should have done that in the first place. but suing them and changing it now is only going to make them more expensive.

also, to make a 100GB drive they'll now have to physically put more storage space onto each drive, so even if you don't count the law suit and the cost of changing, they'll still be more expensive

Smellyirishman

Commander Vimes wrote:

to make a 100GB drive they'll now have to physically put more storage space onto each drive, so even if you don't count the law suit and the cost of changing, they'll still be more expensive

So you will be paying more money for more space, makes sense! This is not going to suddenly make prices skyrocket.